2025 Pro-Life Highlights: Celebrating a year of pro-life wins
If 2025 proved one thing, it's that the pro-life movement is not slowing down. And Live Action continues to lead where culture, truth, and accountability meet.
Here are some of the biggest victories the pro-life movement celebrated in 2025.
This summer, the reconciliation bill known as the "Big Beautiful Bill" passed Congress and was subsequently signed by President Trump on July 4. The bill included a provision to temporarily defund Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses of about $700 million in Medicaid funding for one year, unless they stop committing elective induced abortions.
Despite multiple efforts by judges to block the defunding, the provision of the bill has been allowed to stand as lawsuits from the abortion industry, including Planned Parenthood, proceed.
While a historic victory, the defunding is only temporary; taxpayer funding of abortion businesses will resume this summer, meaning the pro-life movement must keep the pressure on both Congress and the Trump administration to fully defund Planned Parenthood.
After taking office in January, President Trump pardoned 23 peaceful pro-life activists who had been imprisoned for violations against the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Each had been targeted by the Biden administration, which ramped up efforts to silence pro-lifers while Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization — the case that ultimately led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade — was at the Supreme Court.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, the potential and eventual end of Roe triggered the weaponization of the Department of Justice, even as FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that 70% of abortion-related violence was being committed by pro-abortion activists against pro-life organizations and individuals. Despite the FACE Act being meant to protect pregnancy centers and churches in addition to reproductive health facilities, prosecutions of pro-life individuals made up over 90% of FACE Act cases. The Daily Caller reported that the Biden DOJ alone brought more than a quarter of all FACE Act prosecutions in just four years.
“They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people… this is a great honor to sign this,” said Trump while signing their pardons. “They’ll be very happy.”
According to a report from pro-life group Operation Rescue (OR), over 50 abortion businesses closed in 2025, most of which were Planned Parenthood facilities. "54 clinics closed or halted abortions, with 44 clinics opening or resuming abortions," the report claimed. "Of those 54 closures, 36 (67%) were pill-only clinics, and 18 (33%) were surgical clinics."
OR noted that Planned Parenthood closed 64 of its facilities in all, 36 of which committed abortions and 28 of which referred for abortions. There are now four states that have zero Planned Parenthood facilities. Many of the closures centered on the plan to change operations over from brick and mortar businesses to telehealth businesses involving the abortion pill.
Notable closures include Planned Parenthood's mega center in Houston, Texas, the infamous Margaret Sanger building in Manhattan, and Warren Hern's late-term abortion facility in Boulder, Colorado, which closed after 50 years and after killing an estimated 42,000 preborn babies.
There are still over 650 abortion facilities operating in the United States, though they are vastly outnumbered by pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) 4-to-1.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that South Carolina could defund Planned Parenthood in the Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic decision, allowing the state to redirect Medicaid dollars, even if abortion businesses offer non-abortion services.
South Carolina Governor Greg McMaster issued an executive order in 2018, “prohibiting any clinic that provides abortion care from participating in the state’s Medicaid program.”
In response, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic sued and ultimately lost at the Supreme Court. Abortion activists argue that Medicaid funding is prohibited from being used to pay for abortions, but the reality is that money is fungible. That money is paying for the same building, same utilities, same provider salaries, and therefore, is indirectly supporting abortion.
🚨 BREAKING: Supreme Court rules for South Carolina! States are now free to defund Planned Parenthood and redirect taxpayer dollars to real, life-affirming care. This is a major win for South Carolina—and a path forward for every state that wants to stop funding abortion and
Live Action's “Baby Olivia” video was added to the curriculum for schools in four new states in 2025: Ohio, Idaho, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Previously, in 2024, "Baby Olivia" was introduced to school curricula in North Dakota and Tennessee.
"Baby Olivia" is a computer-generated 3D animation detailing human development in the womb, showcasing incredible key moments including the start of brain activity and the heartbeat. Live Action created “Baby Olivia” in collaboration with a panel of medical doctors, including experts in embryonic and fetal development — Dr. David Bolender; Dr. Donna Harrison; Dr. Tara Sander Lee; Dr. Katrina Furth; Dr. Michelle Cretella; and Dr. Jeffrey Barrows, DO, MA — who each endorsed the project.
Much of the information in the Baby Olivia video comes from the Endowment for Human Development (EHD), a “nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health science education and public health,” which remains neutral on bioethics issues. EHD's prenatal development DVD is distributed by National Geographic.
In December, the Department of Justice rescinded a post-Roe, Biden-era policy that allowed abortions to be committed at Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals at taxpayer expense. In August, the VA had "proposed a new rule 'to reinstate the full exclusion on abortions and abortion counseling from the medical benefits package, which was removed in 2022,'" wrote Deputy Assistant Attorney General Josh Craddock, in a memorandum opinion released by the DOJ.
He added that existing law “unambiguously commands that VA may not provide abortions when furnishing medical care under 38 U.S.C. § 1710 or any other provision in chapter 17 of Title 38."
The memorandum confirmed, "[W]e are compelled to conclude that VA may not provide abortions under any provision of chapter 17 of title 38 of the U.S. Code, contrary to the conclusion of our 2022 opinion."
After being rescinded by the Biden administration, the Mexico City Policy was reinstated by President Trump upon his return to office, once again preventing taxpayer dollars from funding abortions committed overseas. First introduced by Ronald Reagan, the pro-life executive order has been put into place under every Republican president since.
After Trump took office in 2017, he expanded the order into the “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance” policy, increasing the number of federal agencies that are prohibited from giving taxpayer funding to foreign non-profits that commit or promote abortion.
GREAT move by President Trump reinstating the Mexico City policy which ensures American taxpayers do NOT fund the killing of babies overseas! Next up: Let’s do the same thing for American babies and defund every cent of the $700 million tax dollars from Planned Parenthood!
Live Action led a call to action known as Defund Day on June 28, a single coordinated day of demonstration rallies held at over 200 Planned Parenthood facilities across the country.
Pro-life activists urged Congress to finally and permanently defund Planned Parenthood of the nearly $800 million it receives in taxpayer funding every year. The pro-life movement had a temporary victory with the passage of the so-called "Big Beautiful Bill," which temporarily defunded Planned Parenthood of federal Medicaid funding for one year.
Live Action hosted multiple debates on college campuses across the country in 2025. Founder and president Lila Rose debated Dr. Mary Anne Franks at Georgetown University on issues surrounding abortion and the role of the legal system in protecting fundamental human rights
In addition, Live Action's Christina Bennett debated Mikki Kendall, an author and pro-abortion political commentator, at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in June, where Bennett made arguments based on the humanity of the child, which Kendall consistently ignored.
In September, just days after the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, Rose accepted an invitation to debate Frances Kissling, former president of Catholics for Choice and a founder of the National Abortion Federation. A post-debate vote found Rose to be the winner by a 2-to-1 margin.
Rose then debated political commentator and video game streamer "Destiny" at UC Irvine in November over whether abortion should be legal.
The same month, Rose debated pro-abortion blogger Kyla Turner (@notsoErudite) at Vanguard University on the topic of abortion and the right to life.
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